Tindie: an etsy for electronics

If you have a finished project you’re now bored with, here’s Tindie. It’s a one-man operation headed b [emile] that hopes to connect makers with people who think DIY projects are really cool and have money.

There are already a few websites that cater to the builder who wants to sell projects: Kickstarter for one, but this is based on the concept of campaigns. Tindie aims to be a techie etsy, according to [emile]’s market research post on reddit; a places for makers with a soldering iron to sell stuff, but who are baffled by the concept of knitting.

Right now there’s nothing to buy on Tindie – [emile] is looking for hackers to sell their projects so the store doesn’t launch with an empty stockroom. If you’ve got an old project sitting on your shelf that you’d like to sell, put it up. [emile] is only taking 5% of the sales – just enough to pay for the hosting. Hopefully it will be popular enough for the eventual Tindie/regretsy blog.

Interesting… I’ve seen a bunch of these types of sites now… So they collect 5% on each transaction… hopefully that does not include 5% of shipping. How do you get paid, via paypal?? So another 3% there… Who stocks the items?

If it were a Techie version of Etsy… they would charge 25 cents per listing, that’s it.

Interesting – I’m now seeing it intermittently. I’ll dig into it tonight. Try logging out tindie.com/logout/ and then log back in. It seems to be something with sessions & permissions for logged in users.

Nothing wrong with having options. This will fly in it’s original configuration or it doesn’t. Either with a commission business model of a fee per listing model it’s a gamble if the bills will be paid ,and a reasonable compensation earned. Emile may not clear enough to pay for a 50¢ frozen burrito from the supermarket a year. I registered to see what does come up for sale. Any projects I have for sale are old, and haven’t been powered up for years.

I feel 5% is too much. I mean it isn’t absurd but it is still a good chuck just to be a middle man with a database.

Second, I would be pretty concerned about liability doing request projects. Scarfs don’t catch on fire. Electronics can. Plus FCC part 15, I’m not sure how that would regulate something you are selling to an “end user”. IE you are requesting a project that does X, you aren’t someone DIYing you are and end user, so doesn’t part 15 apply for home use?

If so you’d have to legally test items for 1000s a pop to validly sell them without any liability.

Now don’t get me wrong we totally need a marketplace for electronics inmojo is another one that comes to mine, but I would have set one up myself if I didn’t think these issues were important.

I’m sure Emile will figure out the right legalize to put in to the TOS to absolve himself. One other way, I believe, may be to offer a kit section for both tech and mech kits. People love putting it together themselves, and kits tend to be found along with complete and novel projects from flea markets to Makerfaires.
Kits and parts (can we call them t-findings?) may be a safer way to launch. I’m curious to read the FCC standard myself.

From what I understand, Part 15 is more meant to regulate only that which is mass manufactured on the basis that you would send in a couple of samples for testing by the FCC. Once they pass muster, your whole product line gets the greenlight.

Single and/or very low-volume products, though having to be in compliant with Part 15, don’t require the testing as it would be impactical to get the samples necessary to make an accuracy assesment. As such, any liability is between the end-user and producer.